The Flash Season 5 Spoilers: Cicada, Nora West-Allen, A New Wells, And More We Learned At SDCC 2018

The Flash Season 5 Spoilers: Cicada, Nora West-Allen, A New Wells, And More We Learned At SDCC 2018

When The Flash returns for its fifth season, there’s going to be a strangely familiar new face taking up residence in Central City. At the end of Season 4, the mysterious girl that popped up around nearly everyone on the team revealed herself to be the daughter of Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) from the future.

Her arrival will present the team with an entirely new set of problems, as she reveals exactly what’s made her come back in time to confront her parents. On top of that, though, there’s also a new villain coming to town, a new Wells on the way, and plenty of other issues to deal with.

To figure out what, exactly, is going to happen, GameSpot was part of a small group interview with showrunner Todd Helbing and the cast of The Flash at San Diego Comic-Con. While they remained tight-lipped about many aspects of the season to come, the Flash gang was surprisingly open about how the first few episodes of the season are going to play out.

Take a look at the spoiler and teases we managed to get out of Team Flash about what’s to come in Season 5, then sound off in the comments with your own hopes for the new episodes. Also make sure to check out all of the Arrow Season 7 spoilers we were able to find out. The Flash returns Tuesday, October 9, at 8 PM ET on The CW.

The theme for this season.

After introducing the time-traveling daughter of Barry and Iris from the future, Nora West-Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy), Season 7 will focus a lot on The Flash’s legacy and what that means to practically everyone on the team. None more than Barry and Iris, though, as they are confronted by their own personal future.

“Our theme this year is legacies,” Helbing says. “There’s a lot for Barry and Iris, and everybody has their sort of thematic challenge with this, but with them, it’s truly like, what’s more important? Is it more important to be a great father? Is it more important to be the Flash? Are you friends with your kids? Are you parents? You know, when can you be either? All those questions that new parents grapple with, we’re playing with Barry and Iris. It’s a lot of fun.”

What Nora’s arrival means for the show.

In its first few seasons, Barry was constantly screwing up the timeline by going back in time. Now, his daughter has done the exact same thing, which is going to have an impact on the show.

“She clearly messed up something majorly,” Helbing teases. “In the first episode, you’ll find out a lot of what that is. We’re not doing Flashpoint again, but there’s certainly a ripple effect.”

For Barry, her arrival makes him immediately question himself as both a speedster and a parent. “Was he around to teach her?” Gustin wonders. “Did he not want her to be a speedster as all? What? We’re going to answer those questions in the first couple episodes though, and see Barry and Iris’ kind of different takes on her being here.”

Nora’s relationship with her parents is strange.

Now that Nora has made herself known to her parents, she’s going to be a bit distant from Iris–an idea introduced last season. That’s something the show is going to confront early on.

“She’s a little standoffish with Iris,” Gustin explains. “We don’t know why. And she’s like extra clingy with Barry.” Candice Patton, who plays Iris, adds, “We’ll get into that in Season 5, why they don’t have the best relationship and why Nora is so much more of a daddy’s girl.”

Nora’s arrival makes Barry feel robbed of his life.

While the idea of meeting your future child might sound exciting, it’s not for Barry. After all, this is a man who had his parents taken from him at a young age, and now, he’s losing the opportunity to first meet his daughter when she’s born.

“Something we touched on in the first episode is, it’s kind of hard for him because he’s always wanted a family. He’s always wanted a kid and now getting her like this. He almost feels like he’s having another kind of thing stolen from him,” Gustin admits. “His mom was killed because of his powers. He grew up with his dad in prison because of his powers and time travel, and now he doesn’t even get to meet his daughter the normal way, he meets her at mid-20s… We’ll see him deal with it in stages but it is kind of tough, kind of weird for him at first because he does feel like he’s been robbed of a lot, and this is a gift at the same time its like, what is this going to affect? How will this affect the future?”

A tease for this season’s big bad.

It was revealed that this season Team Flash will face off with a villain named Cicada, played by American Pie alum Chris Klein. In the comics, Cicada leads a cult of people that kill those the Flash has saved, using daggers shaped like lightning bolts.

It won’t play out exactly like that on the show, though. “What we do on our show is always inspired by it,” Helbing says. “So we’ve changed a lot of it to create a story that, or a villain that’s formidable in a way that we haven’t done before.”

As the trailer makes it clear, though, the lightning bolt daggers are still being used.

Get ready to meet more than one new Wells.

With Harry gone, it’s time to bring in another new Wells for Tom Cavanagh to play. However, the actor teases that there will likely be more than one this season. The Wells we will first meet is a strange one, though.

“This year I thought, we’ll add a little flair, and this guy is going to be called [Sherloque Wells], following along with the myth and the legend of Sherlock Holmes-ian type, but we might turn that a little bit on its head, the way they did with Iron Man,” the actor says.

How Sherloque will be like Iron Man remains to be seen, but Cavanagh seems to have big plans. “What was nice about Iron Man, I thought, was they took the superhero trope and kind of turned it on its head a little bit,” he explains. “He had so many weaknesses, and when I say that, I mean that in a good way. It humanized him. He was quick. He was funny. I guess one of the great ways of describing him, one of the things that I’m drawn to when I see the superhero characters, are flawed people doing extraordinary things, because it sort of humanizes them to me.”

There might not be a Wells and Cisco friendship this year.

Though it’s too early to know for sure, Carlos Valdes (Cisco) is championing the idea of Wells finding a new BFF on Team Flash.

“Well, I’m not going to lie. I’ve loved playing opposite Tom for any and all iterations of Wells,” the actor says. “I think we work really well together and I love that and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world, but I think, I mean, I have to be honest, I would love to see him explore that kind of dynamic or that close or entertaining of a dynamic with somebody else. Do you know what I mean? Just, I’m a big fan of change and changing things up, so I don’t know, that’s my hope. We haven’t really gotten into too much Wells stuff yet, but yeah, that’s my hope.”

Get ready for a new suit.

As revealed in the first trailer for Season 5, Barry is wearing the Flash ring. With that ring will come an upgraded suit–finally. What it will look like has yet to be seen, but given how constant the Green Arrow has changed up his look, it’s good to know Flash is getting something new.

Iris might get to actually be a journalist this year.

One of the biggest issues The Flash grapples with every season is whether Iris is a journalist or not. In the first two seasons, her journalistic pursuits were central to the character. At a certain point, though, that side of her got buried as she became integrated into Team Flash. Now, though, it sounds like she may be putting her reporter hat back on.

“I have been told that that is the plan,” Patton says. “To get Iris kind of back on track being a journalist. I don’t know how in depth they’ll get with that. I’m always a little skeptical ’cause there’s always so much going on but the plan is to kind of move in that direction. I mean, have you seen that article from 2024? Iris wrote that article so we do have to get to a place where that is possible to some degree. So I think we’re moving that direction.”

Is Cisco developing a drinking problem?

With the Thinker dominating so much of Season 4, the show didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Cisco in the aftermath of his relationship with Gypsy (Jessica Camacho). That will be addressed in Season 5, though it sounds like Cisco may be spending too much time drinking to get over his heartbreak.

“I think that party that we end at in Season 4, where they’re all at the West House, I think that was his first opportunity to start processing things and his only tool, the only tool at his disposal there was some champagne,” Valdes hints. “So you can expect that to play a part, in terms of how he processes that break-up… Champagne plays a big part.”

Caitlyn isn’t giving up on Killer Frost.

It was revealed in Season 4 that Caitlyn had some form of Killer Frost inside of her before the particle accelerator explosion in the show’s first episode. Now, armed with that information, she’s going to dig deeper into her other half in a quest for answers.

“I think we’re gonna see at the top of this season Caitlin really trying to get more information about Killer Frost and how she came to be and understanding that a little bit more,” Danielle Panabaker says. “Which is exciting and I think that’ll help us understand her motivations as well.”